Oxford head coach Des Buckingham admitted he missed Tyler Goodrham’s brilliant late equaliser which brought his team a 1-1 draw with Millwall.
Goodrham’s 86th-minute equaliser cancelled out a first-half header from Japhet Tanganga.
Buckingham admitted: “I missed it, I was busy talking to Greg Leigh as he came round, so I wasn’t sure who’d hit it – I actually thought it was Owen Dale!
“But I’ve obviously seen it since – Tyler doesn’t score tap-ins, does he?
“He’s a young man in age but an old man in everything else, in terms of maturity and the way he’s been able to adapt to the demands of the Championship and to the positional changes shows how mature the young man is.
“When you step up a division you never know whether young players are going to find that difficult or thrive, but Tyler’s taken to the Championship like a fish to water.
“It was disappointing to concede from a set-piece, but we’d had the best record in the league on that so I’m not unduly concerned about it – and they are a massive threat from free-kicks and corners.
“I’m not sure how many they had but it was a lot, and we defended the rest of them very well, and did well to come back and get that equaliser.
“We obviously try to get three points in every game, but these single points will, come the end of the season, help us achieve what we want to achieve, which is to make sure we stay in this league and which for now helps us get a bit higher up the table.”
Millwall boss Neil Harris admitted being very frustrated not to have won the game even though the Lions stretched their unbeaten run to nine matches.
Harris said: “I suppose it shows how much we’ve come on in the last 10 months that we’re really disappointed to only come away with a point.
“I thought the way we played, and the positions we got into with some great attacking play, was outstanding.
“We just didn’t have that killer instinct to be two or three up at half-time.
“Or do we just not have that quality in the building? That’s the reality at football clubs, unfortunately.
“In the second half the game kicked off into next to nothing, in my opinion. It was scrappy.
“Oxford played better second half, but without creating any chances until the goal.
“I never felt in any danger. We were poor with the ball in the second half in the final third.
“I thought we handled the game up to 80 minutes really well and then we just became a little bit ragged and lost our shape a bit.
“Yes we should have closed him down better but ultimately he’s come in onto his wrong foot and then hit it into the top corner from 25 yards – it’s a brilliant goal.
“We are nine unbeaten and have to think how far we’ve come in 10 months – but we also don’t want to settle for things and want to be better all the time.
“But I look at the positives – and we played so well for 45 minutes.”
